Relationship between Teachers’ Job Satisfaction and Their ...

English Language Teaching; Vol. 8, No. 7; 2015 ISSN 1916-4742 E-ISSN 1916-4750

Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

Relationship between Teachers' Job Satisfaction and Their Attitudes towards Students' Beliefs and Motivation

Hadi Salehi1, Elham Taghavi1 & Melor Md Yunus2 1 English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran 2 Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia

Correspondence: Hadi Salehi, English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran. E-mail: hadisalehi1358@

Received: March 2, 2015 Accepted: April 3, 2015 Online Published: June 29, 2015

doi:10.5539/elt.v8n7p46 URL:

Abstract

Many studies have been done in the developed countries due to the importance of job satisfaction; however, only a limited number of studies have been conducted on teachers' job satisfaction in Iran. This study is an attempt to investigate the relationship between teachers' job satisfaction and their attitudes towards students' beliefs and motivation.To this end, both qualitative and quantitative research methods including interview protocols and questionnaire were utilized. To collect data, in the quantitative part of the study, a validated questionnaire was administered to sample of 340 among the English teachers, teaching in Iranian language institutes in Isfahan. After gathering the questionnaires, those teachers willing to be interviewed were selected for in-depth interview. Both quantitative and qualitative data were categorized, coded and analyzed based upon the main themes and the respective research questions. The results revealed that there are empirically positive significant relationships (t > 2.56, P < 0.001) between teachers' job satisfaction and their attitudes toward students' motivation and beliefs. Moreover, the interviews showed that teachers' level ofjob satisfaction was high, although they are not satisfied with financial matters. The finding can shed more light on the area of teachers' job satisfaction and related factors to have better understanding of the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. Furthermore, educational institutions through considering the results of the study can improve teachers' perceptions of their job and improve job environment to manage language learning institutes or schools better than before.

Keywords: attitudes, beliefs, motivation, teachers' attitudes toward learners, teachers' job satisfaction

1. Introduction

In recent years, more and more people around the world are in need of acquiring a higher level of competence in the learning English as a second or foreign language, making the English language teaching profession one of the popular careers. According to Kozloski (2002) although extrinsic rewards such as payment or positive teacher evaluation was involved and supportive, it was the intrinsic motivation that played more important role and was responsible for teachers' motivation. Although a growing interest in teacher job satisfaction in the field of EFL/ESL developed quickly during the last two decades, assessing levels of job satisfaction among teachers has increased because of growing trend of qualified teachers leaving the teaching profession for reasons other than retirement (Ingersoll, 2003). If foreign language teachers can be supported, in some ways, to understand where they stand, and if they can stand there with dignity, security, satisfaction, then all schools students and communities, can benefit and meet targets of policy planning (Papastamatis, 2009). Therefore, the goal of this study is to extent our knowledge about teachers' job satisfaction and their attitudes towards their learner through investigating the teachers' perceptions of their overall job satisfaction and exploring the way teachers see their students' beliefs and motivation to learn English as second language.

2. Literature Review

Some studies indicated that job satisfaction is connected with teachers' sense of efficacy (Currall, Towler, Judge, & Kohn, 2005). Therefore, when teachers have high perception of their professional job quality, they also have positive attitudes towards teaching, as an achievement factor. As Drake (2002) assumed, teachers' skills and

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effectiveness are likely to be changed over time so that providing more professional development opportunities to increase teachers' skills and self-efficacy can be helpful to reduce the level of job stress and as a result increase satisfaction from teaching.

Cranny, Smith, and Stone tried to find out the various ways that job satisfaction was define in 1992. Their analysis, finally, help the researchers define job satisfaction as "an affective (that is, emotional) reaction to one's job, resulting from the incumbent's comparison of actual outcomes with those that are desired (expected, deserved, and so on)" (p. 1). One of the most significant in the issue was the Hawthorne studies, leading up to the promotion of job satisfaction (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939). The goal of these studies, conducting at Harvard Business School from 1924 to 1933, was to find out how different conditions such as illumination can affect the workers' productivity. The result of the studies showed that changes in conditions and work context temporarily lead in increasing workers' productivity.

Hong Goo (2011) pointed out that job satisfaction is also worth consideration from a humanitarian perspective. In other words, it has a great impact on employees' health. Satisfied workers are likely to live for longer time and are healthier (Faragher, Cooper, & Cass, 2002; Fisher & Sousa-Poza, 2009). An important finding for organizations to note is that job satisfaction has a rather tenuous correlation to productivity on the job. In line with Hong Goo (2011), although the accessible research has not consistently shown a relationship between job satisfaction and job performance, several studies (Bowling, 2007; Judge, Thoresen, Bono, & Patton, 2001) recommended that there is a positive relationship between overall job satisfaction and job performance. Such results are fundamental for researchers and businesses, as the idea that satisfaction and job performance are directly linked to one another is often cited in the media and in some non-academic management text.

Contrary to many studies done, Hackman and Oldham (1980), Maslow (1954), and Herzberg et al. (1959) are pioneering studies that provoke more studies in the field. Teachers' job satisfaction questionnaire (TJSQ) using to measure job satisfaction was developed from studies done by Maslow and Herzberg in 1954. TJSQ is, in fact, taxonomy to introduce the involving factors. According to Hackman and Oldham' studies in 1980, if job characteristics of task identify, task significance, skill variety, autonomy and feedback increased, feedback results will be in a more positive psychological state. The employees' organizations are the beneficiary of having a positive influence on work outcome such as increasing the level of job satisfaction, motivation and work effectiveness. Based on Hackman and Oldham'sresults if teachers find their work meaningful or beware of results of work, their work efficiency would increase.

Teaching professions similar to other jobs is authorized by the intentional attempt made by teachers (Townsend & Bates, 2007). As there can be a strong relationship between teachers' perception of English language as a job, they make endeavourer to improve not only their standards but also the quality of the job. So researchers tend to feel concern about the situation (Johnston, 1997). According to Caprara (2003) job satisfaction is "decisive element" that has strong effects on teachers' attitudes and even performance (p. 823). Similarly job satisfaction is very significant fact resulted from self-efficacy.

Attention to the students and teachers' beliefs has been always an important educational inquiry and a focus of educational research. For example, Kern (1995) discussed the significance of belief about language learning through comparing learners' belief at different institution and with those of their teachers. Investigating change in students' beliefs in relation to those of their teachers was another matter of his interest; in order to develop hypotheses about the potential influence of teachers' beliefs on students' beliefs. According to him, results were found to be significantly affected by the type of analysis: global analyses of group and analyses of individuals and course section groups.

In the regard of learners and teachers' motivation, Bernaus and Wilson (2008) investigated the relationship between student motivation and achievement in English and its relation to their teacher motivation and strategy use in the classroom. Research participants were 31 teachers in Catalonia (Spain) and the 694 students in their classes. The results of the study suggested that teachers' motivation is related to their use of motivating strategies, which are related to student motivation and English achievement. Thus, any changes in the educational system that promotes higher levels of teacher motivation should result in improved levels of education of the students (Bernaus & Wilson, 2008).

According to teachers, they are satisfied when working with students, or seeing students' continual accomplishments (Cockburn & Haydn, 2004). Evans and Ingersoll (2001) assumed that there is a connection between leaving the profession and feeling dissatisfied. Moreover, Liu and Ramsey (2008) mentioned that one of the greatest factors affecting teachers' job satisfaction is stress, which is the consequence of poor work condition as well as the amount of time for planning preparing materials to teach. That is inadequate time and heavy

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teaching leads to reduce the level of job satisfaction. Considering the key role of teachers in deciding on standards at schools and providing children with necessities through which they can be successful. We need to know more about the most important methods that teachers use to assist their learners' academic goals.

In the regard of teacher-student relationships Veldman (2005) studied a development of teacher-student relationships and teachers' job satisfaction throughout the careers of four veteran teachers who retained high job satisfaction. Teachers' job satisfaction appeared positively related to the self-reported quality of the teacher-student relationships. Positive retrospective teacher perceptions did not always coincide with positive student perceptions. The researchers found that teachers might have positive job satisfaction despite, in the eyes of the students, a poor teacher-student relationship. In Iran like other countries, many studies considering the importance of Iranian learners' beliefs and motivation and their behavior (Papi & Abollahzadeh, 2012), and teachers' job satisfaction (Nojani, Arjmandnia, Afrooz, & Rajabi, 2012; Zainalipour, Sheikhi, & Mirkamali, 2010) have been done. Still conducting researches regarding teachers' job satisfaction and its relation with other key factors such as students' beliefs and motivation is essential.

Considering the importance of the learners' and teachers' belief systems to our understanding of language learning/teaching as well as job satisfaction and productivity on the job, the study aims to find this possible relationship between teachers' job satisfaction and their attitudes towards students' beliefs and motivation. More precisely the study tried:

To investigate the probable relationship between EFL teachers' job satisfaction, and their attitudes towards students' beliefs,

To explore the probable relationship between EFL teachers' job satisfaction and their attitudes towards students' motivation,

To examine the teachers' perceptions of their overall job satisfaction.

So the study seeks answers to the following questions:

1) Is there a significant relationship between teachers' job satisfaction and their attitudes towards students' beliefs about learning English?

2) Is there asignificantrelationship between teachers' job satisfaction and their attitudes towards students' motivation in learning English?

3) How do English teachers perceive the overall level of their job satisfaction?

3. Method

3.1 Participants

Participants of the study were English teachers who had their BA, MA, or PhD degree; teaching in Iranian language institutes in Isfahan. The participants were both female and male teachers (81female, 128male) who had various years of experience (from a year to 10years and above). They were selected from at least seven language institutes; as in the study, gender was not considered a determining factor in choosing the participants.

3.2 Instruments

In the study, both questionnaires and interviews were utilized to collect the required data. Questionnaire was used to gain quantitative data and interviews were used to help the researcher obtain the qualitative data needed for the study to expand the detail learned from the quantitative section.

3.2.1 Teachers' Questionnaire

The purpose of this questionnaire was to investigate the probable relationship between EFL teachers' job satisfaction, and their attitudes towards students' beliefs, and motivation. It consisted of two parts to provide the researcher with an overall teachers' job satisfaction and their students' beliefs and motivation for learning English as a foreign language. The teacher's questionnaire was developed in Englishand by the researchers. It was piloted on 60 English teachers and Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated. The Cronbach's alpha value for all the variables exceeded the minimum required value of 0.7 and hence, the scale of variables is highly reliable.

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Table 1. The results of the reliability test

Variables

No. of items

Beliefs

15

Motivation

15

Job Satisfaction 15

Mean 3.56 3.57 3.57

Cronbach's Alpha 0.860 0.889 0.821

As shown in Table 1, the Cronbach's alpha value for all the variables exceeded the minimum required value of 0.7 and hence, the scale of variables is highly reliable.

3.2.2 Interview

The second tool for gathering information was interview protocol. Interview, the qualitative portion in this study, is used to gain further or supplemental information that the quantitative method, that is questionnaire, cannot disclosed. While teachers' questionnaire gave a general understanding as to investigate the relationship between EFL teachers' job satisfaction and their attitudes towards students' beliefs and motivation, teachers' interviews provided information that is more detailed. The purpose of the interview questions was to probe more deeply Iranian English teachers' perceptions of their overall job satisfaction.

3.3 Procedure

Three hundred and fortyquestionnaires were distributed among the English teachers, teaching in different English language institutes in Isfahan. Since it was a part of the institutes' condition to allow the researchers collect data, the details of the institutes are kept anonymous in all reports generated from the data. After 20 days, 233 questionnaires were collected; however, 24 questionnaires were discarded from the analysis process due to the major data-missing problem and only 209 questionnaires were considered for data entry and data analysis procedures. All English teachers who had already participated in the survey were invited for the interview; however, only six males and three females were willing to be interviewed. All performed interviews were recorded and transcribed so that the risk of missing the interviewees' comments wasreduced. Finally, the transcribed interviews were organized, coded and analyzed.

4. Results

The data was tabulated and calculations were made through SPSS, version 19 and AMOS. The analysis of qualitative part of the study, which involved personal interviews with teachers, started after collecting the qualitative data because the collected information were fresh in the researcher's mind. The recordings were transcribed and the observation notes were rewritten as an opportunity for analysis.

4.1 Data Analysis (Quantitative Part)

The first part consisted of four items of teacher personal characteristics related to demographic information including gender, age, academic qualifications, and years of teaching experience. As shown in Table 2, the majority of the respondents were male constituting 61.2 percent of the samples.

Table 2. Respondents' gender profiles Gender Female Male

Frequency 81 128

Percent 38.8 61.2

Table 3 also illustrates the participants' educational level. As shown, most of the respondents had graduated masters degree (N = 115, 55%), followed by bachelors' degree holders (N = 66, 31.6%) and only 13.4 percent had PhD.

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Table 3. Respondents' education level Education Bachelors Masters PhD

Frequency 66 115 28

Percent 31.6 55.00 13.4

According to Table 4, most of the participants had 1-3 years of work experience (N = 178, 85.2%), followed by those having 7-9 years of experience in teaching English (N = 14, 6.7%). The least number of teaching experience were those who had more than 10 years of experience (N = 4, 1.9%).

Table 4. Respondents' years of work experience Experience 1-3 years 4-6 years 7-9 years 10 years and above

Frequency 178 13 14 4

Percent 85.2 6.2 6.7 1.9

As shown in Table 5, most of the respondents had university education in English major (N = 69, 58.5%).

Table 5. Respondents' major

English Other Majors

Frequency 69 49

Percent 58.5 41.5

Mean 1.58

4.1.1 Data Missing and Normality

After the demographic analysis, data missing check was conducted to make sure that the data set is complete. Eighteen questionnaires were found to partially have missing data, each with 1-2 items. Since the missing data portion is below 10%, replacement method was done and an average of the next and before question items was calculated and replaced in the missing data. This approach is consistent with Hair et al. (2010). Furthermore, items 34,37,40,44 were designed in such a way to have reverse answers with other similar items. Before the analysis is started, respondents' answers for these questions were coded reversely, as outlined by Hair et al. (2010).

Table 6. Results of normality test

Skewness Std. Error of Skewness z-value Kurtosis Std. Error of Kurtosis z-value

Beliefs -0.54 0.22 -2.44 0.24 0.44 0.54

Motivation -0.49 0.22 -2.21 0.87 0.44 1.97

Job Satisfaction -0.50 0.22 -2.26 0.32 0.44 0.73

In the next step, the assumption of normal distribution was examined. Table 6 shows the results of the normal distribution test. As shown, the z-value results for the skweness and kurtosis are in the range of -2.56 and +2.56,

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